Two Bodies

Two bodies, meshing, sweat on sweat, hands sliding down sleek arms and strong backs. Music pumping, blaring, each beat pulsating, pushing two forms together until they blur into one gyrating soul. A mixture of nail polish, combat boots, tight dark denim and tattoos, brightly dyed hair and body piercings…….The darker side of life.



Two bodies, arm in arm, stumbling to the bar, contagious laughter, tone deaf singing, and good friends. Music caressing, UFC playing in the background, subtle flirtations, sexual innuendos mixed with liquid courage. Beer flowing, secrets spilling and comfortable camaraderie…….The laid back side of life.



Two bodies, curled into each other, warm under covers, in front of a tv, in a big bed, standing in a kitchen. Eyes meeting, lips locking, toes touching as bodies become one. Hearts melting, butterflies soaring, dreams developing into a world of us, leaving behind solitary you and solitary I…..The loving side of life.



Two bodies, watching tv, sharing dessert, a bottle of soda and the bathroom sink. Tickling, laughing, head on chest, heart in hand, side by side on the couch. Unlimited text, late night phone calls, drunk dials, clever chats and cab rides so you don’t sleep alone……The comforting side of life.



Two total opposite sides of life. Each with its own merits, and short comings. “Never will I be that girl that is tamed by love and leaves her wildness behind, never!” Until the day I found that the two could be combined; the living and the loving. I’ve had the two separately and together, I’ve had it all……and lost it.



I’ve sworn that I am happier when free of all ties that bind, so why is it that at night as I lie alone, I dream of being two bodies again, instead of solitary you, and solitary I?

Mended.

there's an alarming clarity that comes with clearing out cobwebs... there's a moment when you empty the dustpan into the trash and tie the bag so no spiders or silky web sneaks out, that is so liberating. what does this mean? I am almost healed. I am bandaged enough now that I am moving on, breaking free of the broken woman he created and grasping, fully, the strong, independant, loving woman that I can be. I'll not let Speedy the Spiderboy ruin what I have become;ruin my chance of finding something real. I'll not give him the pleasure of thinking he has destroyed my hippy heart.

I am on the mend, on the move and on the make. I am sharing a little piece of me with something wonderful. I am twirling in a circle with my arms stretched out, staring at the clouds and just being...No fear of falling, no fear of the landing. I am taking that chance... I deserve it. My heart deserves it. I was not in the wrong. My wounds were NOT my doing so why should I feel the consequence of solitary confinement? I shouldn't.

So this is me singing at the top of my voice, "I am here, ready to be me again...Love me! I am worth it!

The Rainbow Wasn't Enough

The day, miraculously, continues.
The morning after I learned of your suicide,
LouLou Magazine arrives in the mail
Along with the phone bill and the usual
Bag full of advertisements.
Frozen orange juice for 89 cents at IGA.

Errands to run, then the drive
Across town for dinner at Nana's.
Where I drink a glass of wine and convey
Pieces of food from plate to mouth, as usual.
Life goes on. The water is black

Beyond the counter the window reflects
My physical self in a black sweater,
My reflection which is skin and heat,
Pulse and beats, gesturing
And thinks, I am alive.

What makes me alive when you
Are dead? I ponder my tongue
Resting in my mouth and am confused
By it's existence, but life
As it goes on: the routine

Of Pager bills, hydro, groceries,
The meals one must eat to sustain life.
After dinner a drive back
Across town to that downtown arcade
To play air hockey and I compete
Till my fingers are bruised.

If I can just guard my goal,
The wide black mouth
Where the air hockey puck will glide
And disappear, surely I can guard you
From your death.

The puck slams past my defense,
It slips into the goal
Though I am vigilant, though I try my best
To keep you safe. You slid past me into
Death where there are no Lasalle Diners

To go for breakfast in mid-afternoon,
No late nights of Rummy 500 and conversation,
No mornings of driving past the high school
In the old station wagon while the pinched faces
Of students laughed at us among our smoky radiator,

Rosy with laughter for what they thought we didn't have
But did, not knowing
The man at the wheel was talking of suicide
While I was silent, avoiding
Your pain as one does an accident,

On the road up ahead.
Not knowing we were a short time away
From the sunny, blue-sky day
I would come home from Tasha's
And you would jump off the balcony
With a rope around your neck.

Now I wake clawing my way out of dreams
Where I search for you
And pull you to safety, but the truth is
By the time I reach the balcony where you are,
It's too late.

I remember that summer day at the river
When we walked to the edge by the rapids
Saw the sun burst through all that rain,
A rainbow arced above us, and you said,
Always remember the rainbow after the rain.
I was sad over some blighted love, and barely listened,
Because the rainbow wasn't enough then.

And I try to make enough now, but it isn't

Boulevard

Boulevard

Last night I held a handful
of blue pills, their bitter dust
a blanket on my tongue. When I swallowed
and set the glass down, it cracked in two
and water ran across the table
onto the floor, the way blood
bursts from the hurt body.
Across the alley the figure of my neighbor
stood watching at his window,
a "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" poster
on the wall behind him. We had never met,
though we had witnessed the other's
every gesture of sloth or sorrow. In bed
I waited for sleep to slam open
to the dream-figure of my father
Like a lid or heavy earth, blown up. Earlier that evening
I saw my father's face in a stranger's
As it hovered near me on the metro
His skin fit tight around the man's shoulders
Like a shroud, swathed the warm pillar
Of my father's body until he was lost to me.
I could no longer feel his laughter
Or the pulse on his neck, only myself
Shrinking to the size of a child
In my father's embrace, and even smaller.
I saw this over and over, clinging to the memory
Until my fingers curled and eyelids fused
And I was in the darkness, inside my dreams,
Blue pills forgotten.
I heard his laughter, felt his pulse as I
Pressed my forehead to his neck. I was his
child again and the metro passed the
Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

New Words

So the healing process has begun; I don't feel pain like before. Now I'm smiling and flirting... oh how I'm flirting! I'm loving every minute of it; but is it real? Every word I say is genuine, every time I say it. Sounds like a crush. It terrifies me. I just know this won't go my way. All my previous misconceptions about Happily Ever After are scattered. My whole belief system has been tossed into a whirlwind of letters and lies and scattered to the different corners of the earth, leaving me to pick up the pieces when I can find them and create new ones, as I go. 

I hear new words, in a new voice, from a new mouth. And try to believe them. I do everything I possibly can not to hear the echoes of those old lies from that old double edged tongue. I try to convince myself that they are not all the same; that they all shouldn't pay for what he did to me. I can't go around pinning old wounds on new words. I mustn't. It's just not fair to. But here I am searching through every syllable, every slight of tongue, waiting for the old words to burst from the mouth and stab me. 

Oh I'm moving on. I am stronger than ever before. I just need a slower tone now. I need the patient slur of lips, the slow curl of tongue over teeth and a whisper, instead of yell. In time, slow time, gentle time... These new sweet nothings may make the old painful words fade. Time, Is that too much to ask for?

Shhhhhhhhhh don't answer that. 

A tower just for me

I try to be a brick walled tower; I try so hard to build this tower around me. A tower with walls so high that he can not climb or jump. Walls so thick that nothing can penetrate, no one can get through. My lack of trust has done this to me, I know. He has made me like this. If only my tower could keep him out, as it was intended to do. But no, every now and then I let down my guard, just a little bit. I peek over my wall and see him and think, "yes, maybe today he is sincere". 

I'm always wrong. He swears to me that he isn't lying, that I can trust him, that he would never hurt me. But he is lying. every time. every word. He proves it, over and over again. How can I trust him when every lie that seeps out of his mouth hurts me? And he says he would never hurt me? He cries, he uses words that I would pay to hear, if they were true. He makes promises and he breaks them. He asks why won't I trust him when he's promising. And I tell him, he has broken every promise he has ever made to me, so how can I trust him now? 

He doesn't listen. Oh he pretends to. and he is so convincing when he pretends. But it's only while it suits his needs; meets his purpose. and when that's done, he goes right back to lying and forgetting everything he has said. I'm tired of believing now. I don't have the stamina for it. the let down is too draining. I'm exhausted by wondering if he's being real, or not. I just won't do it anymore. I have a life to live, a son to raise, a heart to heal.

sometimes I wonder if I will ever heal. I look at myself and try to find the answer, but all I see is a broken woman that can't trust even herself, her own heart, to make a better choice next time. So I stare into the mirror and I promise myself never to love like that again. I swear I'll never let it get that far, let anyone get that close. My love like that is gone now. I gave it a good shot, I tried, I put every thing I had into that love and it betrayed me. I'll never make that mistake again.

So maybe this tower I've built is getting higher. Maybe my walls are getting thicker. People may think this is detrimental, but I don't care. The safest place for me to be is inside these walls, locked in this tower, with my son; the only love I'll ever have forever.

you may think it's pathetic, but I think of it as self preservation. Inside this tower, I can't hear the echo of his words.

It has to drop...

I'm so tired. it's meeting after meeting, court case upon case, heartbreak just piling up. I find myself staring at him through the corner of my eye wondering who this man is. I feel myself bouncing from memory to reality and really just wishing memory was enough to carry me through. I remember all of those times we laughed; all of the times it was just him and I against the world. And that was enough. I remember words...words dripping from his pen, his fingertips; love letters that were all I ever needed to read to believe in fairy tales. I read these letters now, just once and I see beyond the ink, beyond the words and I see the truth; oh how I hate the truth sometimes.

everyone keeps asking me what I want. Lawyers, mediators, him.... I always say I want what's right for my son. it's all about my son because if I could say what I really want, I'd say... I want to be able to look at him and believe again. I want to look at him and not be so hurt by his lack of devotion to my son, to our past, to me. I want to be able to sleep again with out tossing and turning and waking time and time again from nightmares. I want to be able to walk down the street with out looking over my shoulder. I want to see blue skies and sunshine instead of the cloud he has cast over my life. I want to feel safe and loved. I want to trust someone, anyone! I want peace. I want to let go and move on. I want to heal. I want to forget.

I want the other shoe to drop, it has to drop! I can't keep sitting here clawing my freckles off, tearing my heart out wondering when this is going to end. I can't keep bottling these tears in; I'm drowning in them! I can't keep pretending I'm not devastated by this. I feel like I'm choking on all the words I never said and never will. I'm suffocating on all his lies... I'm suffocating, I'm suffocating, I'm suffocating...It has to drop; it has to stop...

Before I am consumed by an emotion I've never allowed myself to really feel ;

Hate.

Trouble, time and tears

Twenty years, twenty years, twenty years. That keeps going through my mind. that's how long I loved him; how long he loved me. My best friend, my greatest fan and now, my downfall. I never thought I was naive before, or gullible. I knew that down deep inside I was far too sensitive for my own good, that my emotions would get the best of me, but I never really thought that I was naive.

Now I see that I was; that all of my life I have believed in people, put my faith in people...it didn't really matter who the person was; I'd believe in him or her. "Everyone has some good in them" I thought, "you just have to peel back the layers to find it, sometimes". Now I know better. My once flower child heart is now hardening. No more is the girl that would just believe. I'm done with believing. I have no faith. People are to me now, just trouble, time and tears...and I don't have the stamina for it.

Oh how I long for the days when I could close my eyes and see a fairytale. The days where I had someone to believe in; a fantasy, a dream, a friend. Now all I see are double edged swords, crossed fingers and chicken hawks that prey on the weak and vulnerable. Now all I see is me, being weak and vulnerable and everyone seems to want a piece of that.

Everyone I talk to wants me to trust them, to lean on them, to share with them. But I can't. One more betrayal will break me. Even the people I have known forever don't ring true anymore. "What is it they can gain from this?" I question. "how can they use this to hurt me?" I wonder. and I back away, quietly. I don't trust you. because if the one person that I have believed in and trusted for twenty years can hurt me like this, what can you do to me?

I want my rose colored glasses back. I want my faith back. I want the stuff back that he stole and pawned. But most of all, I want my poetry back you fucking chicken hawk! You do not deserve it! 

Twenty years, twenty years, twenty years... I want my twenty years back. I could have used them on someone else that truly deserved them.

One word, is all it takes

Oh the joys of an 8 month old baby boy testing his Mother's authority and trying to get his way...The crying, the screaming, the absolute headache that comes with it. Add to this, a wee bit of teething and you have a cocktail mix for a migraine like no other. 

This is how it's been for days. My perfect little Angel has become spoiled by the coddling and now that I've realized it and have to break this, he has found a new way to make me coddle him. He spoke. His first word ever was almost muffled by a tantrum of tears. He looked clear into my eyes and said "Mama". Oh how my little heart broke. I wanted to scoop him up and smother him with kisses and love, but I held strong. I said praised him! Oh how I praised him! But the snuggles had to wait until he had calmed himself down.

I spent all of this morning repeating "Mama" to him, hoping to hear that beautiful word uttered again, but no, it is apparently not needed to be said just yet. And here I am again, listening to the cries of my baby Shamrock begging to be spoiled. Good grief how it tears at my heart to hear him, but I know this is for the best and if I go to him, he will know he has won and he is the boss.

Ahh... finally, silence. No shrieks of terror, not squeals of "come here to me!" just the little beads rattling in his toys. Now is the time...I can go to him and lavish him with all the love I feel, because even though he hasn't said it again, that one word, was all it takes to melt me, and I'll wait forever to hear it again...